At peak times, Lin said, all 10 of the family's adults plus five apprentices had to work 22 hours a day to meet demand.
Lin's grandfather had four sons, who had a total of 18 children. This family of 25 lived in a house where the King Ho-ho Bakery (
King Ho-ho is now run by the son of Lin's late younger brother.
Lin moved out of the family home to open a bakery of his own at the age of 42, three years after the death of his father.
"The first eight or nine years were the heyday of my career when I had to work around the clock to make pastries out of five or six bags of flour," Lin said. "However, business has gone downhill the past three or four years."
Now he reminds himself of better days by making food on special occasions such as Mid-Autumn Festival, when he makes moon cakes for his family.
Situated at the very end of the Hsinchuang Street, the King Ho-ho Bakery has seen the rise and fall of the town's traditional pastry industry.
One of the shop's specialties is the famous hsiankuang cake (
Lin Shih-wei (
"Like yesterday, we had an order of 400 boxes of engagement cakes and today we're baking 30kg of hsiankuang cakes ordered by a local school teacher," the 39-year-old said.
As well as traditional pastries such as sticky rice cakes and turtle-shaped pastry, Lin said that his shop also carried a small selection of Western pastries such as toast, buns and birthday cakes.
Lin took over the family business in 1992 at the age of 28 when his father passed away. He attributed the decline of his family business to the location of the store and falling interest in traditional pastries.
"Our store used to be in one of the best locations in town because there was a ferry wharf at the back of the house," Lin said.
The wharf, however, became unusable after silt accumulated in the Tahan River.
"While there is a night market down the street, things are quiet here, especially after sunset," said Lin's 62-year-old mother.
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